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$75 million initiative to bring more internationally educated professionals.
Published on: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 12:00:00 GMT
VANCOUVER - Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh today announced a $75 million federal initiative that is expected to assist more than 2,000 internationally educated health care professionals to put their skills to work in Canada's health care system.
"The whole country benefits when immigrants and internationally educated Canadians are able to make full use of their knowledge and experience," said Minister Dosanjh. "This initiative will strengthen our health system by helping to increase the supply of health care professionals, which will improve access to quality health care and reduce wait times."
The $75 million, which was included in Budget 2005, will be provided over five years. During this period, it is estimated the funding will assist in the assessment and integration into the workforce of up to 1,000 physicians, 800 nurses and 500 other regulated health care professionals. The numbers will vary, however, according to the priorities of provincial and territorial governments.
"This fulfils the Government of Canada's commitment at the First Ministers Meeting last September to accelerate and expand the assessment and integration of internationally educated health care professionals," said Minister Dosanjh. "This complements a series of other measures we are taking in collaboration with provinces and territories and the health care community to provide cities and rural areas across this country with the health care workers they need."
Strengthening the health care workforce is a key objective of the Ten-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care, which all First Ministers signed in September 2004. The Government of Canada is supporting the training and hiring of more health care professionals through the $5.5-billion Wait Times Reduction Fund. In addition, the Pan-Canadian Health Human Resource Strategy provides $20 million per year to improve health care workforce planning, promote the use of interdisciplinary health care teams and increase recruitment and retention of needed health care professionals.
Minister Dosanjh also noted that today's $75 million announcement is part of a wider Internationally Trained Workers Initiative, involving 14 federal departments and agencies.
"The Initiative will improve the integration of immigrants and internationally trained Canadians into the labour force so they can contribute their full potential to Canada and share in its prosperity," said Minister Dosanjh.
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